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He took her to Europe, and she came back with the coveted designation of England - returned. I t happened that before Rasil mar- ried Fatumal, Dr. Kaul had proposed Rasil as a wife for Daddyji. In 1920, when Daddyji was preparing to go to England for postgraduate work in medicine, he had sought out Dr. Kaul in Amritsar to ask him about hIs British experiences. "Instead of going to En- gland, why don't you settle down here?" Dr. Kaul had said, looking Daddyji up and down appraisingly. "We could help you to set up a private practice and also arrange a marriage for you. I have a very pretty girl in mind. She's just nineteen and very ac- complished. Her only drawback is that she has a somewhat checkered past." Daddyji had changed the subject; he was not interested in getting married to anybody-he was going to England. When, many years later, Daddyji learned that the girl Dr. Kaul had spoken about was Rasil, he told the story to Mama ji. She exclaimed, "I have always known that Rasil and I were born under the same star! " M AMA]! used to accompany Dad- dyji to the Gymkhana Club dur- ing their first months in Lahore, and sit and watch for hours as he shone on the tennis courts or at the bridge tables, but just as he started spending more of his time at the Cosmopolitan Club she started having less time to go with him, because of the children. From the ve- randa, she watched him leave for the office in his car early in the morning, and from the bedroom, where she waited up for him, she heard the car coast into the small dnveway late at nIght. She seldom saw him in between. Rasil, however, saw him often at the Cosmopolitan Club. She was one of a very few Indian women who were bold enough to take up tennis. She pio- 51 neered the custom of playing tennis in a sari, and even played in mixed dou- bles, despite the objections of conser- vative club members, who saId, "If they have mixed doubles on the courts, what's to stop them from having mixed doubles off the courts?" Daddyji would often play with Rasil, in singles and in doubles. At first, he played with her because she was often the only wom 1.n standing about the tennis courts and she couldn't find a part- ner; the men were hesitant to team up with a woman. Later, he played with her because she had proved to be one of the best tennis players at the club; by then, many of the men not only accepted her presence on the court but sought her out as a partner. Part- ners for the annual tennis tournament were drawn by lot, and Daddyji drew Rasil for the first mixed-doubles match. The draw evoked much comment in the club. Tennis players said, "Dro Mehta carries his luck with him wher- h " ever e goes. When it got too dark to play tennis, and the mosquitoes became so thick it was anguish to sit outside, the mem- bers would retreat inside the screened and Flit-sprayed club building and play cards. In the beginning, Rasil would look over someone's shoulder or reluctantly consent to be a fourth at the bridge table. Before long, however, serious bridge players were competing for her as a partner, and within a few months, a cardroom prodigy, she had graduated to Daddyji's table, the hub of the most serious bridge in the place. She often played as his partner, intui- tively understanding his game. I N March, 1931, Daddyji attended the annual meetIng of the All- India Leprosy Association in New Del- hi. There he found himself seated next to Major General Sir John W. D. Megaw, who, as director general of the Indian Medical Service, was the high- est-ranking officer present. (General Megaw had military rank because, like all officers of the Indian Medical SerVlce, he was subject to call for mili- tary duty.) The two had last met when Daddyji was doing the Jeprosy course at the Calcutta School of Tropical Medi- cine, of which Megaw, then a colonel, had been director. Megaw now re- marked on Daddyji's chair, for it was marked with the name of Daddyji's superior, Colonel Clifford Allchin Gill, director of public health in the Punjab, who had been slated to represent the Punjab branch of the Leprosy Associa- tion. Daddyji told him that Colonel Gill had fallen ill and had asked Dad- d y ji to take his place. The meeting be-